Here's another one of those stories that I always thought I knew fairly
well, but only because I remember the Classic Cartoon version that WWOR-TV
in New York used to show after school. So I'd mistakenly recalled
it as simply a scary story with Ichabod Crane facing the evil Headless
Horseman--an amusing enough tale and quite scary, but little more than
a ghost story. What a sheer delight then to return to the story in
my dotage and find that it is much more densely textured, richly nuanced
and truly funny than I'd ever realized. In fact, you can make a pretty
good case for the idea that our understanding of the story is completely
backwards--that Ichabod Crane is the villain of the piece, the Headless
Horseman the hero.

The story is, of course, set in Irving's favorite milieu in Knickerbocker
New York among the old Dutch settlers:

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar
character of its inhabitants, who are
descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this
sequestered glen has long been known by the name
of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called
the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the
neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence
seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the
very atmosphere. Some say that the place was
bewitched by a High German doctor, during the
early days of the settlement; others, that an old
Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held
his powwows there before the country was discovered
by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is,
the place still continues under the sway of some
witching power, that holds a spell over the minds
of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual
reverie. They are given to all kinds of
marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions,
and frequently see strange sights, and hear
music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood
abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and
twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors
glare oftener across the valley than in any other part
of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole
ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of
her gambols.

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted
region, and seems to be
commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air,
is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without
a head. It is said by some to be the ghost
of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away
by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during
the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon
seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom
of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His
haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend
at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the
vicinity of a church at no great distance.
Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those
parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating
the floating facts concerning this spectre,
allege that the body of the trooper having been
buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the
scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and
that the rushing speed with which he sometimes
passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast,
is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get
back to the churchyard before daybreak.

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition,
which has furnished materials for many a
wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre
is known at all the country firesides, by the
name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

Ichabod Crane has come to the region from Connecticut in order to teach
school. As Irving describes him, he is a birdlike man:

The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his
person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with
narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that
dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might
have served for shovels, and his whole frame most
loosely hung together. His head was small, and
flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy
eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a
weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell
which way the wind blew. To see him striding
along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with
his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one
might have mistaken him for the genius of famine
descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow
eloped from a cornfield.

This uncharitable physical description is just the start of what turns
out to be a pretty unflattering portrait of the young teacher. He
is something of a martinet at school:

Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever
bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare the rod
and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly
were not spoiled.

And somewhat of a parasite outside of it:

When school hours were over, he was even the companion
and playmate of the larger boys; and on
holiday afternoons would convoy some of the smaller
ones home, who happened to have pretty
sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for
the comforts of the cupboard.

He also seems to be averse to hard work:

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses
of his rustic patrons, who are apt to considered
the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters
as mere drones he had various ways of
rendering himself both useful and agreeable.
He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter
labors of their farms, helped to make hay, mended
the fences, took the horses to water, drove the
cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire.
He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity
and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his
little empire, the school, and became wonderfully
gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in
the eyes of the mothers by petting the children,
particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold,
which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did
hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and
rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours
together.

As you can see, the Ichabod Crane who emerges from these pages is just
not a terribly sympathetic character. Somewhat condescending, somewhat
of a sissy, something of a freeloader, he's a young man whom we wouldn't
mind seeing get his comeuppance.

Eventually he sets his cap for Katrina Van Tussel, a delectable young
maiden, whose father just happens to be a "substantial Dutch farmer."
But she is understandably also being courted by local lads:

Among these, the most formidable was a burly, roaring,
roystering blade, of the name of Abraham,
or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van
Brunt, the hero of the country round which rang
with his feats of strength and hardihood.
He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short
curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant
countenance, having a mingled air of fun and
arrogance From his Herculean frame and great powers
of limb he had received the nickname of
BROM BONES, by which he was universally known.
He was famed for great knowledge and skill
in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback
as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and
cock fights; and, with the ascendancy which bodily
strength always acquires in rustic life, was the
umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side,
and giving his decisions with an air and tone that
admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always
ready for either a fight or a frolic; but had more
mischief than ill-will in his composition; and with
all his overbearing roughness, there was a strong
dash of waggish good humor at bottom. He had
three or four boon companions, who regarded him
as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured
the country, attending every scene of feud or
merriment for miles round. In cold weather
he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a
flaunting fox's tail; and when the folks at a country
gathering descried this well-known crest at a
distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders,
they always stood by for a squall.
Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along
past the farmhouses at midnight, with whoop
and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks; and the
old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen
for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered
by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones
and his gang!" The neighbors looked upon him
with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will;
and, when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred
in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and
warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.

Here we find, not merely Crane's rival for Katrina, but a claimant for
our own affections. Brom Bones, a hale fellow well met, is everything
Crane is not--brawny, physical, uncultured, masculine. And it is
this contest which elevates the story from being simply a good scary tale
and sets it down smack in midstream of American Literature. Here,
as so many times before (see Orrin's
review of Huck Finn), we see the contrast between City (feminine, intellectual
and severe) and Country (wild, masculine &, most of all, free).
But, where in the past we've seen the hero flee the restrictive Civilization,
here the Wilderness, in the form of Brom posing as the Headless Horseman,
simply scares away the representative of Civilization. Irving doesn't
explicitly implicate Brom, but leaves little doubt:

It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New
York on a visit several years after, and from
whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received,
brought home the intelligence that
Ichabod Crane was still alive; that he had left
the neighborhood partly through fear of the goblin
and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification
at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress;
that he had changed his quarters to a distant part
of the country; had kept school and studied law at
the same time; had been admitted to the bar; turned
politician; electioneered; written for the
newspapers; and finally had been made a justice
of the ten pound court. Brom Bones, too, who,
shortly after his rival's disappearance conducted
the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was
observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the
story of Ichabod was related, and always burst
into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin;
which led some to suspect that he knew more
about the matter than he chose to tell.

The story remains just as enjoyable as when you were a kid, but reading
it as an adult, you get that wonderful frisson of recognition as you see
it's central theme emerge and mesh with so much of the rest of the Western
Canon. It's just a terrific story regardless of which of it's varied
levels you perceive--a timeless classic that deserves to be read again.

Websites:

See also:

Washington Irving Links:Washington Irving's English Christmas: An American essayist penned one of the best descriptions of the 19th-century British Christmas traditions, and in so doing helped restore many of these then-dying customs on both sides of the Atlantic. (James Munson, 12/25/04, British Heritage)